Translation: An Untold Saga

जया जादवानी

Author: Jaya Jadwani

Translated by: Deepa Kumawat from Hindi original Ankaha Aakhyan

 

Seeing off my brother, I just came back from the airport. The glacial reef at the core of my being is dead frozen then and there. Each single hard try to make him cry seemed worthless to me; after all, it's difficult to pour out so easily when someone has just learnt to open his wings and all of a sudden finds the surface under his feet collapsing. How pity! Sometimes you just wish to kill many birds with one stone but alas! You remain barehanded. What could she answer to the younger brother about the bereavement happened before her very eyes… and for which she was helpless.

            Such a fluke! Was this the reason Maa (the mother) had called both of us together? By the way, what's new in that? She often used to call us together to spend a month with her every year. I had reached and my brother was about to come within a couple of days. That night's sleep, my mother and I shared our heart's words. She kept on reminiscing her foregone times at her in-law's place and amused those enlivened memories.

            "As labelled, girls are the fostering peacemakers between two families; you won't ever let this be impeded upon you. After all, why does this cudgel of nurturing tend to impute upon women? Why do people impinge the baggage upon their shoulders," she had regretted while falling asleep. But you should take in your unfulfilled story first, hmmm.

            Unfulfilled story? Which one were you talking about Maa? In fact, when did you realize to fulfill your own? And, by the way, can one really hope to fulfill these insatiate stories, my mother?

            Please bring home your daughter-in-law, Maa. How long will you manage to stay alone?

            "And do you think she'd like to live with me?" replied the mother. "Should I be a barrier in other's journey of life? I can glimpse the 'dead end' of my life. You both brother and sister are free to listen to your instincts. When we keep on thinking for others, unknowingly our own fate seems to swing beyond our reach," she suddenly stopped with her unfinished agony.

            Do you have any penitence, Maa? Her final dubious confession left her in uncertainty.

            Yeah, I have only one! That it's too late for me now to epitomize my own inner world. But you know! I have compromised with that repentance too. Now, there's a lot living in my life...; both of you; my books; my unaccomplished desires. . . no space for anything else either!

Deepa Kumawat

 

            What if there is any space, Maa? It'd never get fulfilled, I know. But what about epitomizing your own inner world, Maa!

            As she got up late in the morning, she found that Maa has closed her eyes forever.

            Such a painless departure! Whoever got to know was having the first remark.

            Perchance, yes! Dying is always easy; it's only to live that seems hard.

            She performed all the last rituals and rites from the doorstep to the crematorium. The brother was still on the way. . . and as soon as he reached it, he completely broke out to know his mother is no more.

            "You didn't wait for me, Maa! You had to spend the promised future hours with me," he kept on mourning. Nevertheless, who decides who we have to live with the next hour per se? She kept on consoling the sobbing brother as if the unexpected time had bestowed maturity upon her.

Ah! The house where her bother and she spent their bunch of childhood has turned desolate in a blink. How strange! The departed one leaves the life of many as empty as ever. The memories of their father never struck them at all. He was to them just as the other worldly relations. . . It hardly mattered whether he was there with them or no, but their entire life was woven around the mother.

             This house shall remain alive here. We'll meet once a year as ever before. . . The younger brother had promised the sister while bidding adieu in tearful eyes. Few things should never mean to be devastated and dusted, so is this house.

            "Would you ever like to come back to India?" the sister asked while calming the wailing brother.

            "I don't know. I could think to be back if Maa would have been here. I couldn't spend my wishful time with her thinking that one day I shall earn well and would be able to live with her together with all amenities.

            But Money! One always thinks so but as soon as one finds oneself having enough wealth, the precious time passes by in no time.

             Life is too cruel to spare anyone out of its clutches. When my brother left home for his job, Maa was left alone and lonely there. A mere small house of two rooms; a hall; a kitchen; a tiny veranda. Her books and diaries were kept in a room; sundry-coloured branded pens; ball pens; picture postcards; and many such props. I don't know what she used to keep all this in the house. Last time when she had visited her, she was getting annoyed on all these unnecessary lodgings in the house....

            "Why don't you throw all these garbage out if it's nothing of any use for you?" she had requested her.

            "I have memories attached with these. Everything has to meet an end; only memories last forever," the mother spelled out to her.

            "Which memories are you talking about, Maa? You have lived a simple plain life till now," she wished to ask but kept her silence. Maybe, when both of us chose to depart for our own purposes in life, these books only accompanied her in solitude.

            They both couldn't fathom how she was getting battered within.... For them, she was always the same Maa regardless of one fact that she was a bit older now.

            "Now you have turned old and so I will take you along with me," enfolding her hands with warmth, my brother had tried to convince her last year.

            Dear, mothers do invest their youth for their offspring. You should carefully lose yours.... And yeah! I don't want to be anywhere except this very soil of mine.

            "Did you part with it carefully, Maa?"

            "No, I allowed my youth to be flown in the river of time. And my entire imminent years vanished far beyond my reach I couldn't imagine of."

            Why do the life and future of their children central for all the mothers of the world, but not the mothers for the children? Does anyone hope to steal a chunk of time to look at the blank, deserted and fragmented inner world of his or her parents? Like all, he too couldn't tried to grab the chance either. It seems no less than a three-hour movie to look behind the thirty years spent with the mother. . . And that movie was still not that much cherishing rather only a glimpse of being born, being able to walk on one's own feet, and being able to learn the day-to- day worldly affairs. Alas! Today all these glimpses are palpated rigidly within the five fingers.

            Locking up soon, she would too leave the house next week. Ambling through the house, she was arranging things properly thinking to throw off the unnecessarily stored surpluses.

            Moving to the drawing room first, she scoured up the small artistic pictures and kept them in place. Entering to a room then, she got surprised to eye their childhood toys the mother had still kept intact…. Old pens, colored pencil. . . broken toy horse-elephants, Dolls and what not? Some albums, in which the mother has mostly clicked pictures from the older camera.... They both are there in the pics. It was, perhaps, the influence of the mother's persona and imparted virtues that they never fought as siblings. Despite, there remained a lot of affection and comradeship between them.

            Taking out all the toys and some other attached belongings, she distributed them among the children of the vicinity. The room was almost half emptied now. The evening was approaching, She went to the kitchen and quickly cooked something to eat and had it. Now she entered into Maa's room. A lonely woman's life rises with books and sets among the books; a woman who keeps no concern with the outside world. She used to be immersed in her own world. . .; her books; music and a few movies of her choice….

            "I owe to these books to enlighten my life. No exaggerations in that they know me better than my own self," she often used to adjudge thus.

            "Don't you get bored with the same books? You should connect with people and visit them for a change."

            "I often sail with them and have glob trotted with them across seven seas beyond imagination. You know, I have explored a number of hubs with Italo Calvino."

            When the mother used to speak her heart's, she keeps mum thnking that at least she still doesn't bewail of her loneliness. When their father passed away, her brother and she were fretful about Maa's recluse life but she took it as natural and easy. Witnessing such blows of fate, she now understood how despite having the world around, rarely people are capable to justify their own existence.

            Upon the dusty shelf, there laid various Hindi, English, Urdu dictionaries. While dusting she was astounded to know how her mother was so comfortable to bang on any subject with equal ease. Though they both hadn't ever listened to her, they knew that she was often invited to deliver guest orations in the universities and colleges. Finally, she finished to arrange the shelf fixed just to the wall, still there remained unpacked parcels from various unknown addresses; or maybe she wished to post them somewhere but couldn't. Intrigued to know the mystery, she unfastened one of them. There were three brand new books; on one of them, it was visibly inscribed:

            "For Sushant."

Will the meaning of life only be found in waiting?

Waiting for the better days;

For a better poem or fable;

For some better book.

A wait for long-ago departed friend,

For the unveiling of an enigma;

For demystifying the unintelligible truth.

Anticipating for the real love,

who'll take you beyond the Moon and Stars

In the uncanny world of the Lord.

But! The soft sniggling death

Would clasp in his claws uninformed.

Would then, bidding adieu the world

Will there too be a rendezvous with the AWAITING;

Should I choose to come back in this uncanny world?

  Or I let this finish- this endless wait!                                                                       - Eva

            She was out of her wits. . . Who could be Sushant? She has no doubt in recognizing Maa's handwriting; it's hers only. With doubly beating heart, she unfurled another book. . . And the words written were:

            "Ah! How miraculous the solidarity is among pleasing dreams, words and in the earnest love. The three don't ever outreach to one in the way s/he must have desired; always unattainable, never congregated. Such moments be ready to pour down as soon as one hopes to have in his laps. And one lingers on to wait unto his last umpteenth in the hope they will embrace him one fine day."                                                                             --Eva for Sushant

            She was like benumbed questioning within.... Oh,God! Which untold saga is this? Abruptly, she opened the third book. . . And the tale followed thus:

            "I regret you happened to meet me at the dusk of life. I wish we had met amidst the unsullied heydays, maybe I would have seen the lustre of the past-twelve love of the dawn then. The great time is passed now and maybe the murk is waiting to rise soon accompanied with the snowfall.... So often unlived, un-cherished moments lay undying in the frozen heart.... Try to touch and feel that somehow; the frozen shall start melting. And sometimes we end up those kindled charming moments in the river of time...."

            "I am wondered why destiny is triggering the rainfall in the deserted turn of life? A sheer dream. . . An infinite plea...."

            Reading the excerpt, she kept sitting no less than a statue for the moment. "Was there something in Maa's life we never knew," she regretted. It was a bizarre realization she could never share with anyone.... With staggering footsteps, she took courage to move towards the Maa's pillow….

            Among a few books like the holy Bhagvad Gita and The Old Man and the Sea, there laid two special diaries. She lifted and glanced those two. . .these are the living documents of someone's private life. She turned the first one: it was documented with some daily routines; some momentary thoughts; some chunks from the books she must have read and some poignant revelations about both her children. At some special place it was written: "The one which I, really, am!"

            All of a sudden, she began reading. A poem was inscribed on the fore:

Where should I carry this now?

I've tried many places,

Innumerable ones.

On the holy soul, this body seems burdensome now.

            "The flashbacks I have till date, the fragrant one of my being alive is one of them. Some recollections which sway over in no time either in my sleep or in dreams are crumpled very deep inside. These crushed ones are suppressed so fathom deep that it'd need a tempest to blow away the rust on it."

            Unable to believe all sudden revelations, she was nearly half-dead and bewildered. They both couldn't sense the air of this world of Maa and never ever tried to read these books. After their graduation in engineering both them pursued MS and MBA and moved for their respective jobs. Ant form of 'art' was a ravaging of time for them. For them, one who can't compete in the race of life chooses to be an artist. Some, however, may flourish in the field of arts but that's a sheer instance. And life can't be lived on such coincident rather some coincident often happen in the journey of life by chance. Although yes! these books consoled them to a degree that in the company of these books their mother didn't seek anyone to be with her.... But now she thinks if it was a mistake to unknown of her inner naive gloom.

            She flipped the second diary. The inscription followed: "The one which I couldn't be!"

            Her heart was trembling ceaselessly. If she was alive, she would never dare to read this diary. But as of now, she must know all this which she could not know while she was breathing. Wiping out the sweat on his forehead, she kept staring at the words for a long time. Eventually he started reading .... Again a few poetic lines followed: "How cramped the space is / Doesn't fit into the skin / I am frightened / Whether I'd get torn apart and dispel out."

            "Whoever I destined to meet in life envisaged to 'take' something from me. When I was born, my parents warned me - You are a girl and so you have to prove yourself as a good daughter, a good wife in the time to come. To keep the dignity of both the clans is in your hands.... My parents, overtly, put me on the set path to becoming better from the very beginning and hence embroiled to prove myself in the quasi-garb of being nice on everyone's face, the innocent child inside me was barely alive rather 'she' was unknown to the world of her. I was altogether ready to cull with the childhood frenzies of the girl inside me and never allowed the obstinacy of her childish ways. Very early, I left the dollish child then and there and moulded matured to fulfill my parent's will. And now, after marrying, I had to jostle myself to save the decorum of the in-law's clan. A big family of twenty-five people expecting a debonair and courteous daughter-in-law; and the husband wished for a good wife. Just as one needs to eat good food to pacify the hunger, a good companion is a prerequisite to quench the thirst of the body. And so, I used to cook good food in the daytime and would myself be a quenching platter at night. Beyond doubt, my husband used to pay the price. Whilst in the present times the price of the platters has grown a bit expensive where they were quite cheap comparatively in the past. Only food for a couple of days and a few clothes, one might buy it. In earlier times when someone would go to buy a platter, they first think of the benefits of what they will get in return. Men always perk those where he there are likely chances to get something back. In fact, the worth of a human being is ascertained by the fact how much he can comfort others?

            "Then?"

            "Ummm. . . Then it would've been better, I wish, I had been a platter either. Out of my notice, I parted into two."

            "Two?"

            When I was a kid, I used to have severe stomachaches. Someone suggested a sea -body to my mother. Like a thick brown bread in the shape of a round carrot in a round box which used to float in the water. My mother would make me drink the past-night water in it every day and add fresh water in it. The sea-body would again turn double in a week. We would disembogue one in the river but again it the next week, it's two! Apprehensively, after a few weeks, my stomachache got vanished fearing of drinking that rancid water and my mother eventually poured both into the river. What a strange no! We too scatter into two lying inside ourselves and we either empty or throw one of us like I did for my innocent childhood. And pity! My hands are stained with my own blood.

            "Thereafter?"

             Then, I got bestowed with two kids and I saw a life of purpose in them. Until the time I was like wandering in the desert though hankering to reach somewhere this time. I was delighted that someone bridged in my lonely and barren life. Now my children used to share my platter, yet it didn't make any difference for me for I was still destined to be a platter. The family separated... and everyone went with their share of destiny. From now those who were accomplished, their platters remained full of delicacies and the penurious were filled with sukhi rotis (dry loaves). When I witnessed the blown side, I couldn't help bursting into tears. It was out of my endurance to see my children famished. Thence now started the struggle to carry on the wheels of life. How can a vehicle move without an engine? I resolute to be an engine but there was no fuel to run it. I managed that too. Challenging the fate back and forth, I located the wheels of life intact where my children could dream to fly towards their own skies and finally, they flew away.

            "And you kept affixed here?"

            "Yes, I decided to halt my life so that they could succeed. You know, a flyer can't think to take anyone along while flying himself. Such is the law of life, you know!"

             "And you are left behind again?"

            "Yes, I just told you no. . . whoever I destined to meet in life came to 'take' something from me. Nobody made any submission to confer me anything. Although I had buried my physical being long ago, I could not slay my heart. I still wonder how it kept unburied. I left no stone unturned to let it be slain; fortified it within the dungeon; quashed it with stones; many a times jettisoned into the blues; muzzled into the pits like a dead child, but ah look! It's still beating undead. I couldn't affirm at all, after all who was walking along with me?"

            ............................................................................To sate oneself again and again... It means that every unfinished part of us wishes to swing back squarely in the longing for amelioration. '

            "What's actually to feel contended?" for the first time she ever thought.

            Felt like suffocating, she stood up in vain. A hard try to slit away the frozen rock couldn't even displace her inner pangs. As numb as, she turned there once again.

 All of sudden, she turned many pages one after the other.....

             " By degrees, my pain is cutting me to pieces. I have no regrets for having sparse belongings in life. But, I do feel the crave for I couldn't find anyone to share what I have. Standing still, I have spared lonely ages in my lush youth and the weary leaves are falling prosaically now." I am just looking. Why does anyone, out of the blue, find such things that no one actually needs and the burden of which one keeps on splattering throughout one's life?

            "A colossal unbearable void nibbling like rat's bit. Why couldn't I know all this ahead of time," regretted she.

            Is the history of mankind a history of its fathomless excuses?

            O, my mother! Why couldn't we see your heart's. . .? Weren't we of any good for your pain? With all and sundry conjectures, carrying an irresistible burden on her heart, she wanted to cry and shout incessantly... earnestly. . .unstoppably. Maybe till the glacial reef surfaced on her heart crumbles down to ashes. . . Finally, she took courage to move and read....

            "Amidst the bustle inside me, I was helpless to hear my own plea. . . There were divers ways to the world that I forgot my own chosen one. Despite surrounding people, my ennui is getting mushroomed in a jiffy. Why are the worldly ways so perpetual that they do not seem to perish? Why there lies a narrow trail deep inside that one couldn't descry it? "

 " When one could espy whether there can be an unseen stream under the hopeless barren land. . .? Maybe when the melted ecstasy inside you thrills with someone's arrival...."

            "What could this mean?" she held on thoughtfully.

            "Today a seminar was organized in the university on "After Freud". I don't know why but I agreed to differ with Freud in a sense that he could only delve into the either side of human existence. Another side that he never dealt was carried over by Adler and Jung. Though Freud deemed over the idea of Id in human psyche but he turned blind to see the bright side of humans which was pondered over by Jung. Agreeing with Jung, I too believe that 'self-satisfaction' is the ultimate realization among humans. But how? Our problem doesn't lie in 'what' is attainable but in 'how' one can. . .

            She continued reading. . .on and on. . . kept reading....

            "Hello...."

            "Yes...."

            "Is that Sushant?"

            "Yeah, speaking...."

            "I' m Srishti. . .," though desisted, she managed to answer jerkily.

            "Eva's daughter!"

            "Oh! Silence pervaded for a moment...."

            "How are you? Is everything fine?" he asked softly.

            "Mamma is no more," she unveiled regretting it's the first time talking to him yet with these breaking words.

            "No. . . o. . .o," as if a beat missed out, a breathless tone stilled.

            "She too kept mum. After all, everything inside was a mere stone.... A frosty surface devoid of any green blossom."

            "When?," a crispy tone of him pained out and she told the truth.

            "May I come to your home?"

            "That's why I'm calling you...."

            "Did she tell you something...?"        

            "No, her diary told me something...."

            "I'll reach tomorrow evening."

            "Okay!" she put down the receiver.

            "You know, when we choose to walk on the dreamy path, we usually don't wish to know the covert bend yet to come on our way; neither that how long we are destined to walk on this path; nor about whether we may return from half a way. Actually, there was a seminar that very day. As the audience side was much more occupied by the students than the experts, Eva preferred to share her experiences rather sermonizing a mere lecture. Sharing about Parapsychology, the uncertainties she had raised remained unanswered among the present there. Everything was like enveloped in the sheath of an enigma. I can still remember; she had carved her speech as:

            "Actually, we're prone to put on the air what we have either taught or read; or what we have swallowed by reiterations. And we've suppressed our true self in trending the preset. No idea fits to all, it can fit for a few. How could we know who're we and what' re we seeking for? You know, the more choices do we possess, the more confused we become. Do we even know what dreams and aspirations we wish to write on the tabula rasa of life or we've vouchsafed others to write for us?"

            Little by little, he keeps on telling.... The lover of her mother. . . she fixed her glance on him- a mature and tender-hearted man, bright skinned, empty and desolate eyes. . .must have lived around half-a-century yet happened to meet in the midst of it. "All through the morning, she felt awfully bizarre and rather embarrassed that she's going to have rendezvous with her mother's lover. But why? After all, what is left to know even if the love lasted between them? Won't it be much fair that a mystery remains in mist as it was until now?" forgetting the icy ingot chocked though the glottis, she kept on pondering. But then! Then, disapproving the conjectures, she rather prefers to mull over and asks in herself- what are the sundry places lie within us that no one can see? And those ones which at times were empty and void but suddenly revivify as someone chiming steps tread into it. Shouldn't I know my mother's world after her where this unknown has copped to reach whereas her children couldn't ever?

            "How are you feeling?" He asked himself while reading the diary.

            "Nothing special.... So often, it happens" a voice from inside said.

             " What's really matter now when she is so far away? If she were alive, it might have got some sense" she, actually, did not really have any rejoin for the moment. Though, quite obviously, both of them perchance knew the differences between their parents... nonetheless, were there some virtues that they couldn't wish to cross?

            Seeing her engrossed in thoughts, he kept his silence. And now he took courage to look into her eyes... ah! These very loving eyes must have looked at her mother; must have caressed her; must have conversed assorted ideas. She felt like, drop after drop, the frozen rock was getting heaped as ever.

            Amidst all the inner cacophonic smog where all the contentions were ready to mash one another, she was sitting oblivious and affixed as if interrogating was her only business. He took a break awhile and then requested to her, "May I continue to delve deep into the matter with the hope you'd not take an umbrage."

            Hearing his painstaking reclusive tone, she could only nod in 'yes' unspoken.

            "Her gravitational attraction was magnetically lugging me towards her. After the valedictory function of the seminar, I pursued her straight way with a cup of tea in my hand. Introducing each other, we started bartering common affairs. While it was a common matter, it seemed uncommon to her as she was hitting the nail curiously and astutely. She averred that C.G. Jung, and Lethbridge second the existence of a hidden scabbard over what is perceptible by eyes. All the bygone reminiscences dwell buried in it. If this is the case, there must also be such an existence where these unborn actions keep inherent. Perchance, thst's why it has been said 'everything returns'. "

            He paused for a moment, and she was staring at him confounded.

            "Then, how far humans are independent? I had asked her," he continued.

            "Humans are that much free as they are to make a choice between tea or coffee or between staying somewhere or leaving...," answered she.

            "I don't believe you're so normal."

            "I am very normal. It's that I'm just trying to insulate myself with my own efforts."

            "Yet again, he fell still with chocked throat. And lending ears to a stranger, Srishti was sitting as vacant as an abyss."

            "She used to appraise the number forty a special one and admit that I actually came to life after my forty. I was living as if in infancy in my own womb, which started taking shape. She then continued - There are seldom chances that people carry-on unearthing a search from where it ended formerly. Rare the case to find people, who think out of the box and have moral fiber to boost it. I think, many a times thorny ways and goals also lay awaiting people's steps. Thereafter she kept on deliberating plenty about the discoveries of Kalin Wilson and Lethbridge. The discoveries unveil how the numbers ten, twenty, thirty and forty are so significant that including the four directions, everything in the world can be identified in their own circle. For example, the number of ten identifies the East; twenty the South; thirty, the West and forty, the North."

            "I was looking at her.... She was dwelling amidst the world she wished to live in and the one she didn't create yet she was forced to breathe in. I readily caught her agony and pondered how half of the age of such people faded into flouting the bars of the cage. How unfair is the law of nature that she closes the doors for the ones who wish to walk ahead and welcomes those with wide ways who don't wish at all. Do humans have to ordeal for his strength? She had also specified- How an unclutched man builds castles for himself and started dreaming of liberation."         

            For a while, there pervaded silence. She was so feeble to utter anything as if she jellified into ignoramus rock hardened cliff. Thoughtless... speechless. . . as if Sushant's words were creeping down inside in some dim ravine.

                        We were still left with enormous unsaid avowals and so he continued, "But, our time was getting over there. It was almost six o' clock in the evening, and I had to fly at nine. As I needed to make a choice, I did. Walking along, we reached at this very abode. I unraveled this house through her eyes. These books. . . both of you siblings. Pouring out her heart for both of you, she cherished, " I have penned down the life of my children as a shloka (couplet). . .their lives would proliferate in its meaning." Looking at the farthest, then, she had deplored, "You know! In the journey of life, there is no living or breathless being who bestow you with a fulfilling life. After all, how far my offspring could be. . . As time goes by, leaving you amidst the sombre unlit dusk of solitude, they too chose their own ways."

            A territory of chilled desert until the horizon... lifeless... breathless....

            "Could you bring me a cup of coffee, please?" he asked as if hoping for a recess. With frail steps, she managed to enter the kitchen. It was hard to lift those heavy steps. She felt as if some the intense feelings wishing to rupture the walls of the heart. Being together almost three decades of life, why couldn't she hear her mother's unspoken beats aspiring to be heard? Do all the children of the world remain unaware of the inner plight of their parents? And, see! How an outright stranger descended up to the core of her mother's heart while her own bearings couldn't ever touch up on.

            When she came out with two cups of coffee, he was still there in front of her portrait on the wall. How strange! Some cries seem vaporized yet drop by drop tears plunge inside. . . volcanoes erupt, and the ships of hope sink gently.

            The all-enveloping silence collapsed into an echo for a minute when she put the tray on the tiny glass table, but soon the same silence crept in.

            "Then! Didn't you go to Chandigarh that day?" she enquired reluctantly.

            "No," trying to wipe his throat, he answered.

            "That night I had my dinner with her. It was the coldest night of December. There was a small heater soothing the air and we both were sitting around it. That night I truly got the knowledge of feeling hungry and realized that until we try to calm our hunger by food, we cannot feel contented. That day I felt as if I fed my soul by eating the lukewarm maize chapattis and Sarson ka saag (Mustard green leaf curry). We were witnessing the sight of melting butter on the chapatti as well as our melting selves," her throat chocked while speaking yet she kept sitting there lifeless.

            'At the dine, we shared some intimate belongings of our families with each other. I was surprised that she did not talk any bit about her husband. Even when I tried to dig, she circumvented very cleverly.

            "Neither he could stir me, nor could he owned me. And by the way, the only thing is- whom should I share what I have. I' m actually wearied carrying this burden. . ." saying so, she started laughing but I thought it better if she would cry that moment to feel healed.

            O, my mother. You should better burst out. But no... maybe because it's not so often that ice splits.

            "Sushant some people always stay out of our lives. However sweet they claim to endear with us, they remain a failure to have a place in our lives. After marriage, I felt like a cow, I have been tied to this peg. I am filled with repentance for this fodder and this house, but I cannot even run away. And you know Sushant, why I could not run away? Because the cow had now delivered its calves. As I just shared with you, I am born after forty in the true sense.... Yes Sushant…, I was sleeping in my own womb for centuries," she continued saying her heart's.

             These words thumped a mallet on the frigid ice inside and certainly, an unseen fissure must have shot somewhere....

            In a feat of numbness, she was helpless to make an eye contact with him and kept seated like a statue. He, then, continued....

            "She manifested that she is fond of visiting places, yet she is not fortunate enough to be at those places where she wished to go and so she showed me photographs of those fond places and confessed - my son is abroad. I too wish to visit there but then I think that he'd take an umbrage to encroach in their set personal life and would feel uncomfortable. Sushant, tell me, do we bear children hoping that they'd take care of us in old age or become our support? I think, no…. these can be worldly constraints which can be dealt without question. Actually, we bring a life into our lives because they fulfill our souls ... The nascent desire to surrender oneself to someone selflessly justifies here. I don't know why we unburden our sense of belonging by expecting trivial things and let this sacred bond decay in attempts to meet the frivolous plumbline of expectations."

            All these disclosures felt to her as if shots after shots hammering on the inner frozen gloom. . .why doesn't it move a bit? Further remarks followed as, "you know! She showed me your childhood snaps and was delighted to say. . . I can see my shadow in my daughter. She identifies with me to the extent that sometimes I try hard to mask from her. To be true Sushant, I don't want anyone to care much for me. I want to think for myself first...."

            A hauling silence permeated for a moment. . . an ivory stout whizz....

            "It was blissful for her to sit with a cup of coffee in a spiffy restaurant; to spend lonely hours amidst the lush green under the setting sun or to watch an English movie in the theatre with no one's company. She often used to say... love and creation likely come to fruition in tranquility. Everything rejuvenates in the tranquil hours and we tend to mould that through certain lexis. We keep on repeating as words fall short to detail those moments... you know Sushant, it's a matter of destiny to trip up on an apt word, a true person and a harmonious tryst. One needs to dig deep for that."

            Some more punches on that snowy rock which turns in azure now.

            As a snowfall diffused unto far and wide, solitude engulfs everything into white. A colourless dense silence. . . By that time the coffee lost its heat. Nobody even held the cups. . .

            Unparking her little car around eleven in night, she dropped me to the university guesthouse. As she was damn crazy for the passionate voice of Abida Parveen, we listened to her throughout the way....

            "All arts assay to vouchsafe a tongue for the tongue-less. Yet we do not listen to what is left to say... After all, we don't even listen to what is being said.... Do listen to the interval between two words; for in- between that, the 'desirous' may be hidden you really yearn to hear."

             "But one needs to be dexterous enough to listen to it. Doesn't one?" I responded.

            "Definitely, Sushant. When you solicit someone, you get nothing. All you need is to earn the desired, be it your inward fancy or an outer delight."

      "In all her clairvoyance, I knew, an assorted persona was lying behind the curtains which I never come across till now. I was feeling as if some sightless hands ensnared my heart and I wouldn't get liberated of this magnetism forever. Honestly, it wasn't a physical attraction. . . I’ve met so many such pleasures where everything breaks in no time and still one feels happy. Here, it was a time beyond experience," he then unveiled with a voice soaked in sundry saline waters of the seas.

            "It was out of endurance for now so he stood up and went to the kitchen to heat up the coffee. . . The whirring sound of water was reverberating... he might be splashing his face. The more melancholic fervour he plunged into, the greater grief would have been thronged in his heart through an impalpable orifice. A twanging of utensils kept echoing for a while... he might be heating or making an afresh coffee! she thought.

            However, she tried hard to move a bit but she remained vulnerable. He too was deeply silent... with a soupy cavernous stillness.

            Moving the cup of coffee and a glass of water towards her, he initiated, "So, we spent those couple of days in unison."

            "Getting ready early in the sunrise, we used to explore the whole day as per her wish list and would get back to home in night."

            "He ceased a while and began shivering when try to deliberate further story."

            "I'm feeling like aphasia to detail those twin days. I surmise, it wasn't my fortune but someone else's which I have got by errors and omissions yet as soon as she'd reminisce these treasure moments, they'd get snatched from me. We were breathing in exuberant ecstasy. Did you ever see a newborn breastfeeding the mother? How s/he grabs the mother with both tiny hands from his/her entire existence as if the mother is the world for them. We both too sucked the cup of life in those twin days."

            "Listening to him, she felt kicks and jolts in her entire being. God knows who's knocking from behind?"

            Though she was witnessing her mother's world by ears as well as by eyes, she was also getting mindful of her pangs. She wanted to know her ignorant bliss. How foolish she was to believe in the prone visible till now! She remembered to persuade her so often- 'please do live the life of peace and joy, my mother! You' re unchained now of your duties.' And she would smile unuttered. Only at once, she had replied:

            "And what about ME?"

            "Means!"

            "No, nothing. . ." she shunned.

            "Are all mothers, untold narratives of the past?"

            When I was about to leave, she had bade adieu in such words, "I have no regret that we couldn't spend much time together rather I am happy and beholden that amidst the endless journey of life, we ambled together whatever little time was there in our providences. I am indebted that after a long knocking, life unbarred the doors for these couple of days, at least. Thanks zindagi (life)... and thanks to you Sushant...!"

            After a sudden hiccup, she felt that one after the other the frigid rocks in her heart banged down and scattered hither and tether... only the white lush land all around....

            I wished to meet her once again, but she refused saying, "Nothing can be lived afresh. We get only what is destined for us."

            "Srishti, you know, you just have lost your mother, but I...."

            Cleaving the frozen shields, suddenly the tepid brackish water burst forth. She, who despite taking pains couldn't melt down, was weeping bitterly. The serene barrier collapsed and the water was squirting out overwhelmingly.... Certainly, it'd cast into a rivulet. A woman's brook of salinity....

            I wonder what number of women waters their respective inner glooms with these saline waters and what number of crops get harvested through it. Maybe this very brook from their hearts vaporizes into clouds and turning candy, pours down upon the earth. As Mr. Sushant adduced sweetness to her tears, she wished to convey him a 'thank' but it too sailed away in the running stream and the glacial reefs kept overlaying upon her gratitude.

***

 

Author’s Bio-note: Jaya Jadwani

Born: May 1, 1959, at Kotma, District Shahdol (Madhya Pradesh)

Education: M.A. (Hindi and Psychology)

Works: 'Main Shabd Hoon', 'Anant Sambhavnaon Ke Baad Bhi', 'Uthata Hai Koi Ek Mutthi Aishwarya' (collection of poems), 'Pahinji Golha Mein' (Sindhi poetry collection), 'Mujhe Hi Hona Hai Baar Baar' ', 'Andar Ke Paaniyon Mein Koi Sapna Kaanpta Hai', 'Usse Puchho', ‘Main Apni Mitti Mein Khadi Hoon Kaandhe Pe Apna Hal Liye', 'Ankaha Aakhyaan' (collection of stories), 'Barf ja gul', 'Khamoshiyon Ke Desh Mein' (Sindhi story collection), ‘Samandar Mein Sookhti Nadi', 'Ye Kathaein Sunai Jaati Rahengi Humare Baad Bhi' (Representative story collection), 'Tattvamasi', 'Kuch-Na-Kuch Chhoot Jaata Hai' ( Novel), 'Mitho Paani Kharo Paani' (this novel was also published in Sindhi), 'Hin Sheher Mein Hiku Sheher Ho' (Sindhi Novel), 'J. Krishnamurti to Himself' (Hindi translation).

Others: Production of a telefilm under 'Indian Classical' on 'Andar Ke Paaniyon Mein Koi Sapna Kaanpta Hai'. Translation of many works in English, Urdu, Punjabi, Oriya, Sindhi, Marathi, Bangla languages.

Dramatic adaptations of several stories broadcast from All India Radio, Delhi.

Honours: Muktibodh Samman, Kusumanjali Samman 2017 for 'Mitho Paani Kharo Paani', Kathakram Samman 2017, Gold Medal on stories and many other big and small honours.

 

Translator’s Bio Note: Dr. Deepa Kumawat

Dr. Deepa Kumawat is a senior Assistant Professor in English working with the Department of Higher Education, M.P., India. She completed her Ph.D.in Translation Studies and translated a number of Short Stories, poems and articles so far. Believing in hard-work with positive attitude and tireless energy, she always look forward to add to the field of translation and research areas pertaining to Translation Studies.

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Setu, August 2024